The present invention relates to a power semiconductor module obtained by combining several power semiconductor chips such as diodes, transistors and the like. More particularly, it relates to a bidirectional switch module that can supply electric current bidirectionally.
In electric power conversion devices such as an inverter that inverts DC voltage obtained by rectifying and smoothing AC power source to convert it into AC of an arbitrary frequency and a matrix converter that directly converts AC of a certain frequency into an arbitrary frequency, a bidirectional switch that can supply electric current bidirectionally is used (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-45772 (Patent Document 1)). Further, also in a flat display apparatus (hereinafter, referred to as “plasma display apparatus”) using an AC plasma display panel (hereinafter, abbreviated as “PDP”), a bidirectional switch is used in its power recovery circuit (for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-316360 (Patent Document 2)).
In the apparatus using the bidirectional switch mentioned above (for example, plasma display apparatus), from the viewpoint of cost reduction by shortening the manufacturing man-hours and reducing the substrate size, the modularization of the bidirectional switch has been desired.
The power semiconductor module technologies used in modularizing the bidirectional switch and others are disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 10-163416 (Patent Document 3) and Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-358244 (Patent Document 4).